Introductions, cont'd...
Beginning Your Course
Well, the big day is here.
You remember the five steps of opening an online training course:
- Open with personal introduction
- Allow learners to post personal introductions via chat tool or audio (if a very small class)
- Begin webinar with an opening ice breaker
- Explain goals and objectives of course
- Prep learners with information they need for success in your training
For the sake of this training, we'll say that you are using Adobe Connect to deliver your online training course. You've made sure that you are fully prepared. You've kept the class size at 25 or fewer participants because you want to make interaction between the participants easy and seamless.
You spend a couple minutes introducing yourself to the class (or being introduced by someone else) and the learners get a little insight into your background. Remember, as Ms. Riegel says, the learner wants to know why you are qualified to teach this course. Sell yourself.
Next, you want to engage your learner. In a regular classroom, you might go around the room allowing participants to introduce themselves. The online class in Adobe Connect is a little different. While you can't see all participants' faces, you can see all participants' names and their city of residence. You can also see a particular participant's typed response or emoticon.
Imagine you're doing a software training class on PowerPoint, and your opening ice-breaker is a short story and then a poll - something like, "I'd like to get to know you a little better, so in the poll on your right, rate your level of familiarity with PowerPoint for Mac 2010." As the responses start coming in, you can read the percentages - "Okay, 20% of you have no familiarity at all, 10% of you are very familiar, and 80% of you have some familiarity." Or, let's say that you asked what the learners hope to get out of the class. As the responses come in, call the names of certain participants and read their answer. Ex: "Jim says that he hopes to learn how to embed video into PowerPoint." "Betty hopes to learn how to email a PowerPoint document." "Oh, John says he knows nothing about PowerPoint, and wants to learn everything he can." After you have completed this engagement, promptly close the tool.
Through this kind of introduction, you have immediately engaged your learners in the course. Bear in mind that ice-breakers can vary. Be creative and remember that the participants do not want to hear a 20 minute speech about you. Briefly tell them about you and then introduce some form of interaction. After the interaction, move forward by thanking participants for their responses, turn off the interaction tool, and then go on to discuss the goals and objectives of the course. Finally, prep the learners with the information they need to be successful and get the most out of your training course.
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